Modern Ghost Story – A Parish Panic.
We are apt to imagine that in these advanced times all belief in invisible agencies – such as frightened our forefathers into the burning of weak old women for being leagued with the Prince of Darkness – has disappeared before the light of education and science, even in the most rural and primitive abodes of man. But this is a great mistake. We are not far removed from the fears and superstitions of a long past age, as may be learned any day by noticing how trifling a cause will evoke the dormant dread of and belief in the invisible which lurks so strongly in human nature, more particularly among rural populations.
A rather curious and at first sight mysterious circumstance, which gave rise to some little display of such feelings and to no small general alarm, occurred this week in an upland district of the country. At an early hour in the morning the inhabitants of one row of cottages on a farm not a hundred miles from the village of Gifford were alarmed by the breaking of a pane of glass in the cottage window by a stone apparently thrown from the exterior. The delinquent was sought outside, but nowhere seen. In a short time a similar breakage occurred in an adjoining cottage, followed at brief intervals by another and another.
The little community of cottagers were at their wits’ end, and could not make it out. With the exception of a hedgerow a little distant from the cottages, all around was bare country, and could afford no shelter to the delinquent. The hedge was searched, the birds frightened from its sheltering branches, but with no better success; and, indeed, while the good folks were so engaged, the work of destruction at the houses went on, and windows continued to be popped out as if by magic. The alarm spread, and the “maister” was sent for.
The worthy farmer was soon as much at sea as his servants. While examining the destruction in one cottage, crack went a window in that adjoining. Again was the hedge ransacked, and every crook and crannie of moss, turf, or aught that could give shelter, overturned in vain. The silent storm seemed to come from all points of the compass, no house appeared safe from its visitation, and already the broken panes could be counted by dozens. Things have assumed a serious aspect. The farmer was completely puzzled and helpless; the cottagers clustered in knots, and whispered ominously; while one old woman, more sanguine and outspoken than her neighbours, and exhibiting a stone which she confidently averred had been projected through her window without making a hole in its passage, solemnly pronounced the whole affair “no canny,” and announced her determination to leave a haunted spot.
The news spread. Horses were mounted, and the country was scoured far and wide in search of the mysterious artilleryman. Meanwhile more windows were falling. The wildest theories were broached to account for the mystery. It might be some new kind of rifle practice by the neighbouring volunteer corps; but an officer hurriedly sent for exonerated his corps and the orthodox laws of projection from the impeachment.
The district was now thoroughly aroused. Upwards of fifty diamond-shaped panes of glass in the row of cottages had succumbed to the unseen battery. A motley crowd collected on the spot. Farm servants and foresters, gamekeepers and village gossips, came to the aid of the cottagers; but each was more dumbfoundered than the other. A local authority in matters of science was disturbed in a searching survey of the heavens through a powerful magnifier from a blow from some invisible agency, and the old woman’s belief in something “uncanny” was fast becoming general.
At length the district constable arrived on the scene. Accustomed to seek for the solution of all difficulties more in the wickedness of flesh and blood than in the waggishness of disembodied spirits, this functionary set to work. But while he was taking stock of the damage done in one cottage, out pops a pane next door, and off goes the constable on the new track. For long his professional instinct was at fault, and about sixty diamonds had now fallen before the ruthless and mysterious destroyer. Still the constable turned a deaf ear to all hints of the supernatural; and at last his practised eye caught a certain roguish expression about a little girl’s face which seemed to him to connect itself with the mischief.
He chose a stone, marked it, and left it in the girl’s way. The stone disappeared, and, following the scent, the constable found the girl seated quietly inside one of the cottages, in close proximity to the window. On his entrance she rose and left, and in a few minutes his attention was drawn to a new breakage at another portion of the buildings. The crowd, with the constable at their head, hurried to the spot.
The marked stone was exhibited as the latest missile from spirit land, and the presence of the little girl in the cottage confirmed the constable’s suspicions. The stones had never been thrown at all. The mischievous little fairy, enjoying the fun caused by the alarm and perplexity of the seniors of the community, had glided from house to house, had popped out a pane, and dropped the stone inside at the same moment. The ready fears of the cottagers did the rest, and screened the culprit.
We have not heard whether the constable is to be promoted for his acumen, if the offender is to be tried before the Sheriff, or if it is intended to send the natives of the place back to school to acquire some additional insight into the laws of motion. – Haddingtonshire Courier.
Dundee Courier, 1st September 1866.